Many homebrew retailers will tell you that you can save money by homebrewing. But is this really the case? How much does it really cost to make your own beer? Let’s crunch some numbers.
The typical homebrewer brews enough beer to produce about five gallons. Account for some loss, and let’s call it eight six-packs. That’s a lot of beer! What does it cost to buy a six-pack of a typical pale ale? It varies depending on the brand and the retailer, but let’s call it $10, or $80 for eight six-packs. Maybe less if you buy a twelve-pack here and there. Depending on your state, tax can add a nice chunk too.
A pale ale recipe kit on the other hand, such as the Steam Freak “Bazz” Pale Ale, costs just shy of $35. Of course there’s shipping to account for, but buy two or more and the price goes down to under $32 per kit, plus you qualify for E. C. Kraus free shipping. Now we’re talking! As you can see it really doesn’t cost that much to make your own beer.
Shop smart and you could be in for some serious savings over buying your beer from the store. Compare it to the amount you’d spend at the local pub…you can save a lot by homebrewing!
The challenge comes in when we start adding in the variables, such as equipment. Our Beer Makers Necessities Kit runs for just shy of $130, but includes your first ingredient kit and free shipping. It’s an up front investment, so the more your brew, the less it costs per batch. There are other costs that are spread out over time, such as cleaner and sanitizer, but their per-six-pack cost is pretty minimal (at most a dollar or so per gallon of beer).
Beer blogger Bryan Roth (who you may remember from his guest post titled Malt, Hops, and Zen) explores this question on his personal blog, This is Why I’m Drunk. He was kind enough to compile some data on the costs of his beer recipes and then compare them to their commercial equivalent:

Bryan’s Homebrew Ingredient Costs

Bryan’s Homebrew Costs vs. Commercial Equivalent

Have you ever brewed a beer that you weren’t proud of? Has your home been taken over by brewing gear, kegs, and bottles? While homebrewers are a proud bunch, there are some aspects of the hobby that we wouldn’t go out of our way to share with just anyone.
At the risk of hurting my street cred (who doesn’t love a little self-deprecation?), here are a few of the “trade secrets” I normally don’t let out of the bag. Can you relate to any of these?

1. My bathtub is used for brewing more often than bathing. Some call us “bathtub brewers,” but I don’t know anyone who would actually make beer in the tub. It just comes in handy for cleaning and sanitizing and as a staging area for bottles and fermenters in various stages of cleanliness. However, if my girlfriend wants to take a bath, it means I have to move all my brewing equipment out of the way.
2. Our coat closet is actually a fermentation chamber. Yes, we tend to have more fermenters bubbling than coats hanging at any given time. But who needs a rain jacket when you have beer?
3. I once made a batch that tasted a little funky…but I still drank every bit of it. It happens to everyone at least once. For some reason, a batch comes out tasting pretty far from what you expected. Luckily, there are no known pathogens that can survive in homebrew, so if you can stand the taste, bottoms up. The fun part is that we learn from our mistakes, and every subsequent beer is that much better!
4. A significant portion of my disposable income goes towards homebrewing. What can I say? I love to brew. You can see where my priorities lie.

That’s enough self-humiliation for now. To repair my damaged ego, I asked some fellow brewers to contribute skeletons from their own homebrewing closets:

5. I stained my garage floor when bottling and moved boxes over it so my wife wouldn’t find out. -Anonymous
6. My wife and I have a delicate balance of understanding when it comes to homebrew, so asking for any extra space for bottles or equipment can be a challenge. So, I’ve had to improvise… I have two dedicated spaces for fermentation, courtesy of tough negotiations with my wife: half of a downstairs closet for primary/secondary and half of an upstairs closet for bottle conditioning. I was very ambitious my first year of homebrewing and made 13 batches, which meant a lot of bottles. When I ran out of space, I had to hide some bottle conditioning beer in the one thing scattered throughout the house that was plentiful — my wife’s vast shoe collection. -Bryan Roth, This Is Why I’m Drunk, @BryanDRoth
7. My guest bedroom has a kegerator — though I must say, guests rarely complain when I make that confession. -Thom O’hearn, @AVLBeerScout

Do you have any embarrassing stories from your homebrew experience? Share in the comments!
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

Today’s guest post is from Larry of Brewer’s Friend. He shares some insights on how to improve your home brewing calculations.
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The science of brewing can be just as alluring as the smells, tastes, and never ending equipment accumulation related to home brewing. Brewing science is a wide topic that includes everything from yeast growth, to hops analysis, to the various brewing processes.
Let’s start at the beginning: the science and stats behind beer recipes. Beer recipes have several stats including original gravity, final gravity, IBUs (bitterness), SRM (color), and ABV (alcohol content).
A quick walk through of the stats:

• Original Gravity (OG) – Original gravity tells how much sugar is in the wort prior to fermentation. This is based on how much grain was used, what the volume of the batch is, and mash efficiency (for all grain brewers). This is where the term ‘high gravity beer’ comes from. The higher the OG the higher the alcohol potential. There are two popular gravity scales used in brewing, specific gravity and degrees Plato. Specific gravity (1.xxx) is popular in the home brewing world. Plato is generally used by pro brewers and works well with the metric system.
• Final Gravity (FG) – Final gravity tells how much sugar the wort contains after fermentation. FG depends on the fermentability of the wort and the yeast strain selected. Other factors like temperature, yeast health, alcohol level, and mash temperature also impact the FG. The FG is the gravity of the completely fermented beer.
• Alcohol by Volume (ABV) – ABV is calculated using the difference between the OG and FG. The higher the OG and the lower the FG, the more alcohol is in the beer.
• International Bittering Units (IBUs) – IBUs indicate how bitter a beer is. Perceived bitterness can be different from the raw IBU number. A malty beer at 60 IBUs compared to a thin dry beer at 40 IBUs may appear to have equal bitterness.
• Standard Reference Measure (SRM) – SRM is the color the beer is expected to be given the grains used. Base grains like 2-row and pilsner impart straw/golden colors. Caramel grains add red, copper, and brown hues. Roasted grains impart dark brown and black color.

Beer recipe software can be used to calculate all of these numbers:
Brewer’s Friend has set of over 20 basic calculators, plus a fully integrated recipe editor.
Taking measurements:
For taking gravity readings (the OG and FG) a hydrometer or refractometer is used. I find both work well as an essential tool for record keeping, but prefer hydrometers for their economy and consistent accuracy. Refractometers can be a little finicky at times in terms of accuracy, but they only require a drop or two of wort vs. a few ounces with hydrometer readings.
Don’t forget to pickup a graduated cylinder to hold the hydrometer sample!
Note: Hydrometer readings must be temperature corrected, since gravity density changes with temperature. Hydrometers are usually calibrated to 60F or 68F. Brewer’s Friend has a hydrometer temperature correction calculator that comes in handy. This way, even if your sample is still at a warm 100F, you can get a good idea of what the actual value is before it cools down.
Refractometer readings are given in Brix (which is effectively the same as Plato), but many home brewers work in specific gravity. Our refractometer calculator automatically handles this conversion, and accounts for the optional correction factor that some refractometers require.
Unfortunately there is no simple gadget to measure IBUs. The process is quite complex and requires a beer sample to be sent to a lab for analysis. Someday, maybe we’ll see a Kickstarter project that delivers IBU measurements in a hand held device?!
Recording your measurements:
Brewer’s Friend supports a brew feature that allows log entries for tasting notes, dates, and most importantly gravity and volume measurements. The log entries are used to calculate the batch’s actual ABV, efficiency, attenuation, and other stats so brewers know how their beer really turned out in comparison to a planned recipe.

Other important beer recipe calculations:

• One way to take your brewing to the next level is to pitch yeast at the pro rates. This usually involves making a starter from a smack pack or vial. Brewer’s Friend has an easy to use yeast pitch calculator, which makes sure you pitch the right amount of yeast for your beer.
• Water chemistry is also important in brewing. I pay close attention to my ion levels in every brew. Brewer’s Friend has two water chemistry calculators. The first is a basic version targeted at hitting water ion levels for style and taste. The second water chemistry calculator is an advanced version meant for use by all grain brewers, and gives a prediction of mash pH among many other little details. The backend to our advanced calculator was written by Kaiser of Braukaiser.com.

The team behind Brewer’s Friend is a group of highly dedicated and experienced brewers, bloggers, and technologists whose mission is to make your brewing the best it can be. Check out our website for all your brewing calculation needs and don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions!
Cheers!
Guest post by Larry at Brewer’s Friend
https://www.brewersfriend.com

Bitter is the term given to a category of English pale ales, named for their relative bitterness compared to the English mild ale. Though they’re called bitter, they’re no more so than your average American pale ale. Ideally, English bitter ales should be session-able. Imagine drinking them in rounds at the local pub.
The bitter ales tend to be categorized by their original gravity. “Ordinary bitter” or simply “bitter” refers to the lowest gravity ales. These are ideal for a long day of drinking at the local watering hole. Stronger versions may be called “special” or “best bitter”. Finally, many American drinkers will recognize the name ESB, or Extra Special Bitter. The classic example is Fuller’s ESB (OG: 1.054), and many American brewers have adopted the term for their own English-style pale ales.
Though the naming convention is somewhat loosely defined in the UK, the BJCP has put some guidelines in place to give homebrewers and homebrew judges a framework for comparison. As you can see, gravities and IBUs, tend to increase as we move up the scale:

• 8A. Standard/Ordinary Bitter: OG: 1.032 – 1.040, FG: 1.007 – 1.011, IBUs: 25-35, ABV: 3.2% – 3.8%, SRM: 4 – 14
• 8B. Special/Best/Premium Bitter: OG: 1.040 – 1.048, FG: 1.008 – 1.012, IBUs: 25 – 40, ABV: 3.8 – 4.6%, SRM: 5 – 16
• 8C. Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale): OG: 1.048 – 1.060, FG: 1.010 – 1.016, IBUs: 30 – 50, ABV: 4.6 – 6.2%, SRM: 6 – 18

Ingredients

• Water – Many English pale ales are brewed with relatively hard water, which help give the hops a little “pop”. If you know you have soft water, consider adding some calcium sulfate, also known as gypsum, to your mash water.
• Malt – English pale ale malt, such as Munton’s, should form the base of the grain bill (~90%). Munton’s also make a very good light malt extract. Adding some Victory or Vienna malt will bring in some toasted flavors and a pound of Caramel 40L malt will be plenty to give your beer a touch of caramel sweetness and golden to amber color. Some brewers will use sugar to increase gravity and to impart a dry finish.
• Hops – Kent Goldings is the classic hop for English pale ales. With aromas of citrus and spice it does very well in late additions. Fuggles is another popular English variety, and tends to be more earthy and woody. Bitter ales are sometimes dry-hopped.
• Yeast – The fruity esters derived from a classic English yeast strain are desirable. Safale-S04 is an excellent dry ale yeast.
• Priming – The English are famous for what is known as “Real Ale” — beer that is cask conditioned and naturally carbonated (as opposed to force carbonating under CO2 pressure). To the American palate, cask conditioned ales seem somewhat warm and flat — that’s the way it’s supposed to be! Homebrewers who bottle get a similar effect by using just 1/2 cup priming sugar in a five-gallon batch.

E.S.B. Partial Mash Recipe (from Homebrewing for Dummies):
“1-4-U, 2-4-ME S.B.”
6 lbs. Munton and Fison malt extract
1 lb. 40L crystal malt
.5 pound Victory malt
1 cup brown sugar
2 oz. Kent Goldings @ :60
1 oz. Kent Goldings @ :15
1 tsp. Irish Moss
Primary fermentation for 8 days at 65F
Secondary fermentation for 10 days at 65F
Yeast: Wyeast 1968 / London ESB Ale
**Tips: Prepare a yeast starter and dry hop with an extra ounce if Kent Goldings if desired.
Do you have a favorite bitter ale homebrew recipe? Share in the comments below!
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

If you’ve caught the homebrewing bug, chances are that you’ve thought about submitting some of your beers in a home brewing competition. The cost is usually minimal — maybe $5-7 per entry — and the payoff can be huge. Many home brewing competitions offer as the grand prize an opportunity to brew your batch on a commercial system. Win a Pro-Am competition, and your beer could be served at the Great American Beer Festival! What could be cooler?!
There are a couple basic formats for home brewing competitions to be aware of, the open festival and the closed competition. In the festival format, you’ll be placed behind a table to serve your homebrew to the attendees and the judges. It’s a fun opportunity to “sell” your homebrew and yourself to other craft beer fans. Awards may be for different style categories, “People’s Choice”, or superlative-style prizes like “Strangest Ingredient” or “Best Use of Hops”.
The closed home brewing competitions are usually, but not always, BJCP-sanctioned events where beers are submitted within certain style categories and are judged side-by-side with other styles in the category. These competitions a great because you’ll get score sheets with helpful tasting notes from each of the judges. Keep an eye out for opportunities to judge or steward at the event! It’s a great way to develop your sensory and tasting abilities!
Advice for Homebrew Competitions
To help you maximize your home brewing competition success, here are some tips:

• Brewing a standard style? There will likely be a ton of pale ales, IPAs, and brown ales. Make sure you’ve tried the beer recipe at least once before, because competition will be stiff for the most popular beer styles.
• If you can, submit more than one beer. This will greatly enhance your odds at gaining recognition for your brews.
• Not sure which style category your beer fits into the best? It’s usually ok to submit the same beer into more than one category. Read the competition rules for details.
• Look for home brewing competitions outside your immediate area. Most competitions will accept mail-in submissions. Just don’t mail USPS — it’s illegal to ship alcohol via the postal service!
• Brew outside the box to stand out from the crowd. This works well for a festival style home brewing competition, where people really let creativity fly. If you have something crazy to bring people to your table, this will increase the chances that they will try your other beers too. Before you know it, everyone will be telling their friends, “Hey, did you try that crazy beer over at table 17?”

What advice do you have for homebrew competition success?
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.